The Starblade emerged from hyperspace at the Edge of Eternity, a desolate asteroid field orbiting a dying star. Dr. Vex's signal led them to a derelict station shaped like a broken hourglass, its surface pockmarked with ancient battle scars.
"This place gives me the creeps," Kara muttered, her mechanical eye scanning for threats.
Li Wei's hybrid core pulsed, his stardust skin shimmering faintly. "Vex is here. Stay alert."
They docked at the station's airlock, the interior a labyrinth of flickering holograms and rusted machinery. Dr. Vex awaited in a chamber filled with floating data orbs, his four mechanical arms whirring as he manipulated a holographic interface.
"You're late," he sneered, his voice a digital glitch. "But I suppose punctuality is a luxury for the dying."
Li Wei stepped forward, his presence unnervingly silent. "What do you want, Vex?"
The surgeon grinned, his face splitting into a cascade of pixels. "The favor is simple: retrieve a relic from the Event Horizon. A shard of the Fifth Core."
Kara's hand twitched toward her plasma pistol. "You sent us into a black hole for a favor?"
"Not just any black hole," Vex said, his tone dripping with mockery. "The Event Horizon is Elysium's most guarded secret. The Fifth Core is a fragment of the Prisoner's prison—a black hole forged from the remains of a thousand cultivator souls."
Li Wei's eyes glowed, one gold, one silver. "Why do you need it?"
Vex's grin widened. "To break the chains of this reality. But that's a story for another time."
The journey to the Event Horizon was a descent into madness. The black hole's gravitational pull warped spacetime, its accretion disk a swirling maelstrom of light and shadow. Elysium's fleet orbited the perimeter, their warships bristling with weapons.
"We'll never get past that," Kara said, her voice tight.
Li Wei's hybrid core flared, his body shimmering with quantum energy. "We don't need to."
He activated the Starblade's experimental cloaking device, a gift from the Celestial Forge. The ship vanished, slipping through the fleet's defenses like a ghost.
The Event Horizon's surface was a labyrinth of pulsating energy conduits and shattered relics. They navigated its corridors, the air thick with the screams of trapped souls.
At the core, they found the Fifth Core—a shard of pure void, its surface etched with the Prisoner's sigil.
"Take it," the Prisoner whispered, its voice a chorus of dying stars. "Let it consume you."
Li Wei reached out, his fingers brushing the shard. Pain exploded through him, his hybrid core convulsing as the Fifth Core's energy merged with his own. Visions flooded his mind—ancient battles, dying stars, and the Prisoner's maw of galaxies.
Kara grabbed his arm, her voice cutting through the chaos. "Li Wei! Snap out of it!"
He blinked, his vision clearing. The Fifth Core pulsed in his chest, its void energy intertwining with the Fourth Core's molten gold. His body shimmered with stardust, his qi and nanobots now a seamless fusion.
The station's alarms blared. Elysium's fleet had detected them.
"We need to go," Kara said, her voice strained.
They ran, the station's corridors crumbling around them. The Starblade's engines roared to life as they boarded, the ship lurching into the void just as the Event Horizon imploded.
Back in the cargo hold, Li Wei collapsed, his body flickering with unstable energy. Kara knelt beside him, her mechanical eye scanning his vitals.
"The regulator's failing," she said, her voice tight. "You're burning through it too fast."
Li Wei's eyes glowed, one gold, one silver. "The next Core… where is it?"
Kara hesitated, then activated the star map. The Sixth Core's location burned crimson—a sentient planet orbiting a binary star.
"The Living World," she said. "Veyra's waiting for us."
Li Wei stood, his movements fluid but unnervingly silent. "Then we go."
Behind them, unnoticed, a hologram flickered—a message from Dr. Vex.
"The favor is due. Meet me at the Edge of Eternity."